7 tips for becoming a trusted community elder in an upside-down world
I wrote a long introduction laying out my impeccable street cred and demonstrating why I can claim the word "elder" as my own, and why I might deserve to be listened to on this subject, here, just weeks ahead of my 55th birthday. Then I thought about what abuse- and greed-burdened elected and non-elected men are doing to this country right now, and to the planet, with little conscious connection to the earth, and little competence, ability to listen, loving relationships to guide them, and no street cred whatsoever, and I thought "Fuck it," deleted everything I'd written about myself, and wrote this instead. My shortest self intro yet.
Here are my tips for becoming a trusted community elder in an upside-down world. What would you add? I honestly couldn't care less how old you are when you experience yourself as an elder. I've spent the past decades watching men in their 60s and 70s get leadership entirely, horrifically wrong and the past two years watching children as young as 8 and 9 have to become journalists, chefs, homebuilders and engineers, teachers, caregivers, fundraisers, first responders, and undertakers in genocide zones. Every last child of Gaza is my elder. The always-angry men killing them, and others, aren't. So, no matter how old you are today, now's the time for sharing what you know about becoming a trusted community member, or elder, and about how you recognize trusted others when you see, feel, or hear them in person and online.
Tip #1 - Shine
When we're being true to ourselves– curious about, connected to, and ultimately in service of everyone and everything we love– there's far less need to silence ourselves or others. Little need to control. Little need to worry or hide or cower. Other beings, not just humans, recognize this shine from within instinctively– when they feel it from within you and when they see the engaged-and-loving sparkles in your smiling or flashing, fierce, whole community-defending eyes. So, shine.
There is risk to this, yes. And sometimes it's even life-or-death risk. Yes. And the risk is often far greater in some bodies and places than in other bodies and places. Yes and yes. And, I ask you. Who better to demonstrate taking that risk daily than trusted community elders? Somebody has to put themselves on the front line for life and what makes life worth living. For me what makes it worth living is community, the land herself, connection to all, belonging, freedom, and growth– which is both learning and unlearning, both trying the new and letting go of what no longer serves anyone present. Also, chocolate mousse can make life worth living some days.
Being brave is what individuals believe they must do. Yes. Be that as needed. And, we are so much more than that. Shining is what deeply connected communities do together. Shine.
Tip #2 - Befriend your home world
Befriend your home world. Befriend everyone and everything you can. If your ancestors started with humanity, don't start with humanity. Start somewhere else, like with the planet herself.
Befriend every inch of soil beneath your feet, every blade of grass, every tree and new plant or bird or insect you encounter, every sunset, every rain drop, every star, every encounter with Earth's water, wonder, and wilderness. Befriend every weed that you meet, which, when you get to know them better, you'll likely start calling healers or teachers or partners in mischief making. If you struggle with this, make friends with some very small children, go outside, and do what they naturally do. Very small children make the best elders when it comes to remembering what you naturally did as a kid that was wonderful but that some adult told you wasn't a good idea or was not appropriate or good enough.
It can be tough for adults, I well know, to make new adult friends. Finding and making friends with the most curious and kind adults you've ever met– regardless of how old they are or where they come from– is another solid way to go. Having just spent 7 years wandering and making friends with forests and fields and parks and rivers, I managed to make a couple of curiosity-centered human friends that I now can't imagine living without. I'm shifting back to making even more wonder-centered and curious people-friends now. I need at least a couple of human friends in my life or my own curiosity gets the best of me and I flat out forget to shower or plan ahead far enough to eat good-for-me food.
After you're friends with Earth, or your patch of Earth, again, and you have a couple of deeply curious and kind people friends willing to remind you to shower and eat, then work on befriending all the rest. Befriending all the rest humanity has to offer isn't easy– that's why you need the planet and a couple of close people friends to do this part. Know that it is possible to befriend every emotion, every thought, and your body, others' bodies, every breath, every imagination, every dream, every ancestor, every story, song, poem, history, and myth. Befriend your every experience– including painful ones, in hindsight, which takes time– befriend every book, festival, ritual, age group, library, culture, and artwork you meet. Every insect and animal. Every mystery. Befriend who and what you can, when you can, as you can. When you can't, you could feel bad about it, or worry about it, or you could simply skip to tip #3. We're almost there.
Lean on all these friends long enough and you naturally become lean-on-able for others, eventually regardless of age, culture, gender, orientation, ability, religion, beliefs, or other circumstance. And you naturally don't feel lonely as often, because we're only lonely when someone convinces us that we don't belong here. We belong, earthlings. We belong. If you've befriended your home world, you'll know this not as just words, but as your own lived truth.
Tip #3 - Let go of what needs letting go of now
This comes as a shock to some of us (repeatedly, over time), but no matter who we are and what we do, we aren't all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing gods. I won't be able to befriend or help or save or even know everyone and everything in this lifetime. I won't be able to read everything or do everything I want to do in this lifetime. And. Being overwhelmed and worried about not having enough time and energy is a commonality across most of the adults, and now teens, I know– those in the United States anyway. We could argue about the reasons all day and wow are there a lot of reasons in my country.
Most days, though, instead of arguing I'd rather spend that time unlearning old ways and trying out different ways of being. To be the change I want, I need to let go of something. Often a lot of somethings! Let go of some tasks, or responsibilities, or work, or people, or even whole places for a while, or forever, so that I/we have more space and time and energy to love and to love life. Other things to let go of in adulthood, off the top of my head: assumptions about the intentions and motives of others, outdated stories about ourselves and others, stale beliefs and abusive ways of being that aren't serving anyone anymore, guilt and shame for being alive and present, expecting others to behave and think the way I do, dropping biases and prejudices that our people and/or families before us couldn't, old habits that keep us numb or disconnected when we don't want to be that way anymore, and so on. Not ending sentences with prepositions: so many things to be let go of! ;-)
This can be simple but it's often not easy. And, often the anticipation before letting go is far worse than after the letting go, which is a nice surprise. For some, the letting go of old ways or people is truly dangerous. There's no denying that most letting in my own life has been far safer than what others wanting change must do. As near as I can tell, though, there is no possible way to have the world we truly want if we don't change the cultural and family patterns that destroy us and others. Letting go can be working hard to change ourselves or it can be simply allowing ourselves to notice, learn, unlearn, becoming more fluid, like a river– to experience ourselves as change itself. Having both fought against a change for years and also simply giving in to the change I know is coming/must happen, I'm a fan of simply becoming change now. Admitting that we are fluid beings, made mostly of water. We're designed to let go. We're always letting go of something.
Are you having trouble letting go? Try changing your words, your story. Or increasing your curiosity. Maybe you're simply making more time for loving life and spreading love. If making more time for love is your purpose, then there's no reason to feel guilt or shame or even sadness or sorrow for letting go. Of anything or anyone. I mean, we're still earthlings, and still human, connected to all, so we're still going to feel a bit sad or even unbelievably sad at endings, even when we personally have little reason to. Embrace all those feelings as you let go!
Today is the first day that I'm fully aware that I'm not running my beloved Ritual Mischief anymore. I'm happy, and also a little sentimental, and also a bit sad, especially when I step into the herbal studio that's been a personal and community sanctuary and is currently a chaos of boxes and being dismantled now to move to another family and to become something new for us. But I'm mostly thrilled that such an amazing new family is carrying Ritual Mischief forward. Happy that I get to help them for a while. And remarkably excited that I'll be working just a couple of days a week this summer, not 7 days a week, which is what you do (well, no, it's what I do) when you run your own small business and it's both an Internet-based business and an in-person business. I've worked 7 days/week for this heart-centered business, for almost 7 years. I'm looking forward to being done with that. Intentionally letting go can be amazing and wonderful, even when it breaks your heart. Letting go can be all the things. Feel all the things!
One way to let go is to simply be more of your true self, more visible, and share more of your real experiences and feelings and speak more of your real mind– this can free you up from having to let go of others, because some will let go of you instead. And, that's fantastic, in my experience, even when it hurts like hell at first. Elders appear to face this bravely, but the reality is that we've simply survived letting people go, and being let go, many times, and we've experienced the beauty of what can happen when we don't cling to things out of fear and we allow everything to have its season. Have its end. Clinging to things out of fear– long past the time they should have been let go of– is the root of most human pain and suffering. Just ask the men trying to reimagine the U.S. government into a billionaire-run, cruel, fascist, dictatorship/kingdom today still dreaming the dreams of long-dead abused/abusive bigots and fools. Better yet, ask the millions of human beings they're actively, consciously hurting today or the millions more they're indirectly hurting.
We can feel all of the above. And I strongly recommend doing so. Just one important caveat for those who come from cultures or families that tend to make people feel small, isolated, and alone. No matter how or where we let go, we earthlings don't let go alone. We don't. We let go as community, or as friends, or as family, or as found family, or as coworkers, or as regions, or as congregations, or other beloved groups whose names I don't know yet. Letting go is actually the perfect time to lean on those you do trust and to grow closer to those who adore you leaning on them because it means you're spending more time together. Try to get at least two trees, two patches of beloved land/places you love going, two animals or insects or reptiles, and two humans into your letting-go-of-this support group. Sometimes letting go is about finding new others to lean on. Sometimes it's simply about noticing and better appreciating who is already there.
Tip #4 - Focus on who and what you love, and where you naturally best contribute, by not focusing at all at first
Without fail, when I let go of what I really needed to let go of– whether that's work, or a relationship, or a once-beloved social media app turned will-to-live-killer, or a business, or a stale way of behaving/thinking, or trying to fix something on my own that refuses to be fixed without more help or community– I find that I have more time to rest. More space. More ability to rest, too. When I'm well rested, body and brain relaxed, breathing deepened, then I have it in me to better notice where I can best contribute next. It's also easier to focus on who and what I love and let smaller things go, too.
Being well focused tends to start in one of two ways: either by being physically in danger (in which case, we get incredibly focused and we run or fight or fawn to survive) or with being safe and remarkably unfocused. Resting. Daydreaming. Relaxing. Floating. Wandering in a field or park or bookshop or garden or forest. Listening to plants or water or clouds. Now that I'm older, it can mean procrastinating on purpose, with style or flare and gusto! Check out how unproductive I'm being right now! It's ok!!
Resting is an important part of the cycle of living, arguably the most important part. Contributing to the world primarily by existing and breathing and wondering at times is great. Full presence is amazing. It means touching– even if it's only for a moment– the wonder, curiosity, peace, humor, or joy within. It makes both kindness and generosity much easier. I think of resting as touching the future we want.
Smart people build rest into their daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly routines. I don't claim to be smart. That's not my goal. I've always preferred wandering and daydreaming and personal freedom and kindness to a lot of planning, so I simply stamp my feet now and then and insist, again, on massive chunks of free time in my life when I've gotten off track. And, I naturally work really hard– work feels like it's built into my DNA. So, I insist that I enjoy what I do. I work toward and for a world where we ALL get to enjoy the work we do. I reject the idea that anyone must constantly do work they hate. Look where that's gotten us! A country full of a lot of haters. The only way loving your work most days actually works (at least here in the U.S. and at least for me, for now) is moving in the world as a village, as a family, as some sort of larger, trusting group– leaning on each other as needed, without guilt. And making scary-at-first changes when you feel the love draining away.
Today I'm realizing that by not running Ritual Mischief anymore (We did it! We let go of something huge this week!), I suddenly have whole days (days!) of time to rest and relax. Woo hoo!! I know that I'll soon fill this time with who and what I love. But I will be resting a lot first. We adults are wily. We can do a few "what matters most to us" things while we rest. I don't intend to take a break from talking about genocide, for example, because people I love are suffering and dying and the world's children are witnessing all adults not able to save children from intentional bombings, snipers, disabling, and starvation. But almost everything else can wait while I rest. The rest of humanity can rush along worried, working hard, and focused. I'm going to daydream a bit. Wander aimlessly in some bookstores and on some beaches. Return to the core of me and my people again.
We aren't individuals singing solos most days. We are choirs. We get to breathe deeply at times because so many others are still singing.
Over time, I've also noticed that when we're truly focused on who and what we love, and we're all in, then we have little time for worrying about who is loving us back, how well they're doing it, and who isn't loving us at all. I'm convinced that it's not our business who loves us back most days. For me, anyway, it's just not. Another sign of trusted community elderhood? Maybe. Even when we have to remove people from our presence or they remove us from theirs, our business is the business of loving life, our planet, and her residents that we're currently closest to (emotionally, no matter where they live). Maybe our primary task is to be lovers of life and the living. Lovers, not lovees.
As trusted community elders, it feels like we get to know just two things for sure: we are here to love, and we are remarkably lucky and deeply grateful to be here, whatever's happening. That's enough. All possible doubts that my active imagination could conjure about this realization disappeared– evaporated– as I watched trusted community elders in Gaza sit on decimated but still beloved land, facing their still beloved sea, with smiles and tears of gratitude on their faces–loving life and grateful for it– knowing they, and even their families, would soon be slaughtered. Their tears of gratitude rolled down my face. Their prayers became my prayers. That changed me for the better. And for good. And as I go, so go my people.
We are here to love.
And we are remarkably lucky to be here.
No matter what happens next.
Tip #5 - Dispense with all notions of individual leadership immediately
If you're still spouting on about pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps and wishing (or voting for) things to be harder for others because you had it hard and had to do everything entirely on your own, then you are lost, friend. Lost. That is delusion.
Life is cooperative. Leadership is collective. Both full-body joy and freedom absolutely require friendship and community. Even if you're old enough or devoted to boot-wearing enough to know what bootstraps even are, nobody– literally nobody– has ever pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps to make it in life. Who made you those boots? Made those straps? Made you? Made the shelter above you, planted the trees you love, and built the roads you travel? When leadership manifests and shows itself from within individuals, what we're all seeing is the tiniest tip of an iceberg. There is massive cooperative effort and love behind that one person or being– from ancestors, friends, family, and coworkers to soil, animals, insects, plants, trees, rivers, stars, air, oceans, and the whole collective output of humanity, too.
Leadership emerges from within collections of beings who adore each other, and adore being together and learning together, or at least from within groups of beings who understand that they really need and must depend on each other to survive and thrive. It is our connected, collective selves– our relationships– that are the foundation of bringing forth loving, generous, and lasting change. Forests and fields and mountains teach this. Rivers, lakes, and oceans do, too. Why does most of humanity so love being in the wilderness or at least a city park? Because the wilderness teaches us about a much greater collective than we can imagine on our own, and it helps us experience and feel and know our place in that much greater whole. Wilderness fosters belonging and awareness of belonging. That's leadership. Not this abusive-to-all drivel the U.S. government is shotgun scattering out in all directions.
Open to the idea that there are more beautiful truths present than we could ever realize alone. More beautiful entities than the truths we hold dear, even, living on this earth. For example, maybe ALL lasting change is fluid, evolving, and group-supported change: from drinking more water or dancing more and spending less time staring at screens, to being more honest with ourselves and others about who we are and how we feel, to ousting dictators and stopping genocide and ecocide. Join or form new relationships/groups or lean on existing relationships/groups in more meaningful and honest ways, to make more lasting changes. Lasting doesn't necessarily mean what younger versions of ourselves believed it to mean. Lasting means changing and growing together across time.
Until more of humanity truly feels that we are interconnected, collective beings, and collective leaders, we will have crisis after crisis after crisis in the human world. Only isolated, chronically abused/chronically abusing individuals need crises to get attention and feel connected. As we scream and rage about injustice, we can also rejoice that the most abusive among us are so visible now! We're all seeing exactly where the old ways get us. How they warp us and ruin us. We're growing beyond that now, some of us kicking and screaming against the process, not realizing that what lies beyond the need for crises to feel connected is true belonging. We're becoming true belonging.
Trusted community elder life hack: Loving people don't need to agree with each other on most things: we need to feel heard, like we belong, less isolated, and less abused. Work on that. Being that. Helping with that. We're coming to a tipping point on this. It's possible that the very next person you help feel "I belong here." and help feel that they aren't alone, will be the person who helps tips humanity toward understanding this as a whole. It's possible that that next person is you. You yourself could be humanity's tipping point into true belonging. When you're feeling like you belong, no matter what you're feeling or how you look, you're it.
Tip #6 - Whenever you're on your own, make it your practice and joy to become even more of your real self
For example, practice staying with your feelings until you understand their origins within you. Go deeper than younger versions of you could go. And, follow your own curiosity to, for example, make things you might love, read what you might love, go places you might love, talk to people you might love, and eat foods you might love. Not that you were told to love. Not that you are certain that you love. But what you might love. We are unique beings. Allow yourself to be unique every chance you get. Your uniqueness deeply serves the planet we all love and live on.
Or, for example, you could explore ways to learn from your mistakes and your worrying and how to stop your own worrying in its tracks when it's not feeling helpful to you anymore– including recognizing your own signs that it's time to think and talk about things with others instead of spiraling on your own and strategies for getting there. My #1 strategy for getting there is writing. If I can't write my way through something, it's definitely time to talk to others. Sometimes I even figure this out before spinning in worry. Sometimes.
Or, for example, practice ways of being more honest with yourself and more loving with yourself. When what you do works, share what you learn– odds are, people you know know can add even more nuance to your understanding. As it feels important to do so, or safer to do so (if you're lucky enough to have the space to notice when you're feeling safer), practice sharing sides of yourself that earlier versions of yourself felt they had to hide for any reason. If you used to apologize often, trying stopping that. If you've never apologized before, try starting that. See what happens. If you didn't ask for help before, start asking. If you've become good at asking for and receiving help, and you've had great practice at that, then start offering help and exploring different experiences and accepting other ways of being now. Maybe your sensitive self or your angry self isn't bad at all– like you once thought. If younger versions of you gave up creative pursuits you loved, pick them back up again. If you've been a creator all your life, then look around for ways to give back and share what you know or look for other new things to make or do that will help you meet and greet new parts of yourself.
Can't do something on your own? Great! Maybe you're not supposed to do that thing alone. Revisit tips 1 - 5 with a friend. In my culture, some of us spend a good chunk of our lives doing everything humanly possible to avoid tips 1 - 5 until we're so exhausted or angry or sick or incapacitated that we finally have to accept help and leaning on others because there's no other choice remaining for us. There's nothing wrong with being a slow learner. I'm a slow learner myself. We slow learners have ample experience with handling things on our own, handling things going wrong, and ample meaningful stories to tell, ample ways to help others, and pretty much non-stop lived inspiration for making art, music, poetry, food, and other content to create if we're creators. Those of us who survive, anyway. ;-)
Tip #8 - Replace always seeking safety or certainty with falling in love with the mystery every chance we get
Yesterday I listened to two men talking about how what the U.S. stock market most wants is certainty and sameness and reliability. And I got what they were saying. I did. But, from an even wider perspective, bleh. I tried to feign interest in that sameness-is-great idea, and I failed. I can't do that anymore. Feigning interest is just not me. I wear my "Bleh" on my face. Dear God, who thought it was a good idea to allow generations of (mostly) men deeply culturally conditioned to value safety and certainty and sameness and reliability– above all else– to believe that they're somehow controlling a changing, living, breathing world and economy, especially without the rest of us having a say?! No wonder this country is on the rocks. That's delusion. We are wilderness and wildness and mystery and magic and deep roots and difference and alive, always-changing, always connecting, beings too! Even in death we are neither sameness nor certainty. We're far more like rivers than we are like dams: far more like fields of wildflowers than concrete parking lots. Whoops, I digress...
Let's talk about falling in love with the mystery every chance we get! Which, BTW, we naturally do. We have to be taught to feel guilt or shame about it. All we have to do is unlearn that. And, let's talk about taking on the trusted-community-elder (and future trusted community elder) task of expanding the mystery, too, as often as possible.
You may have noticed that I skipped tip #7. I didn't skip #7. Tip #7 is simply not mine to write. Maybe it's yours to write. Who can say? All I know is that this is tip #8. And– especially if you noticed that I skipped #7– this one's for you.
One sure-fire sign that I'm in the presence of a trusted community elder– and not someone, or something, like AI, simply parroting or stealing the tired, bygone words of others or trying to sell me something I'll never want to buy– is that they're ok with not knowing everything. They're not seeking nonstop certainty or safety and sameness. They're listening to connect and expand, and they're valuing connection and relationships above arguing from expertise and superior knowledge, most days. Most trusted community elders are more than just ok with mystery. They revel in it. Ask questions out of curiosity. Make choices that nobody but them would, or could, make. Grow accustomed to being called inappropriate or difficult or wrong– and just decide they can live with it and love through it, eventually knowing that their true community and found family have their backs.
We are born overflowing with curiosity, wonder, and with love for the mystery of life. As adults and elders, continuing to fall in love with the mystery of life is a sign that we're being fully held by community– where everyone knows something and helps someone, and is helped by someone, but nobody can know everything– and we know it. We know that we're held by community and by the Earth herself. Contentment with life even as we're fighting to minimize suffering and take power away from chronic abusers is a sign that we are as good at receiving help as we are at giving it. That we're willing to let go of certainty when it means expanding into deeper or larger relationships and selves and ways of being that were unimaginable to us as individuals before.
Trusted community elders embrace the strangeness of here, and the quiet and sometimes shocking beauty of this place. They can be seen loving the unexpectedness of life, the serendipity and magic, with curiosity, with the realization that grief and humility and gratitude bring us closer even as loss breaks our hearts repeatedly. They repeatedly fall and ultimately remain in love with the inescapable mystery of life. And, when I'm with trusted community elders, so do I. I'm ok with all of it too. Almost by osmosis. Even without words. And even better, trusted community elders are expanding the mystery. Expanding the strangeness, the beauty, the unexpectedness, the curiosity, the growing closer in our grief, and expanding the magic of this place, too.
Expanding the mystery.
Expanding the mystery. Some people believe that this is God's work. Others believe this is the gods' work. Or the work of mystics or sages. Or poets and musicians and artists. Or writers and directors and actors. Or witches' work. Or fairies work. Or children's work. Or the work of wilderness and the non-human world. I'm too old to call any of those people wrong anymore. I don't need people to be wrong for me to be right.
Here's my take.
This is our work now. All of us. Falling in love with the mystery and expanding the mystery every chance we get is the work of trusted community elders, and those becoming them. We become a living, rickety, handmade bridge from fear to love. A bridge from needing to cling to only to certainty and safety and sameness to trusting ourselves and others so much that we can join those deeply loving life– even with all the current intentional spreading of human suffering so billionaires can become trillionaires– ourselves becoming an expansion of the mystery of life in the process.
I come from a money- and work-obsessed culture currently "led" by wealthy, disconnected, cruel, and vacant-eyed men almost devoid of ethics beyond an obsession with being seen, heard, wealthy, and constantly bowed to. Chronically abused children turned chronically abusing adults who truly cannot see or imagine other ways of being. They literally think and say "losers" when they look at all the rest of life– at forests and fields, oceans and rivers, stars and space, insects and animals, children and humanity in all her many forms. Those who look at life from a distance and say "losers" are to be pitied. Their time is almost done, because almost all the rest of us are better, do better, and know better than that now.
We are, we do, and we know, better. That's the reality I can feel and see today.
It doesn't matter how much money we made, or what we do, or did, or even what we will do next to make money, feed our family, and pay our bills. No, what I mean is that that matters, but not nearly as much as it matters that we continue falling in love with the mystery, every chance we get. And allowing others to do the same, but in their own ways and leaning on what they need to keep loving the mystery. And spreading our love of life, and mystery, every chance we get. Until we ourselves leave these bodies, return to our beloved Earth, and become yet another part of the expanding mystery.
